Albuquerque Disc Jockey Best Known From Oldies Stations

By Dan Mayfield
Journal Staff Writer

Longtime Albuquerque oldies radio station disc jockey Bruce “Dr. Q” Cooley died on Wednesday. He was 53.

Cooley worked at Albuquerque's most popular oldies radio stations, Kool 102, Big 98.5 and most recently at Real Oldies 1600, where he was the drive-time and evening DJ since 2007. Radio was a longtime passion for Cooley, his brother Bob Cooley said. He dreamed of a radio job since he was in high school in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, Calif., in the early 1970s.

“When he got his radio license, at one time he was the youngest licensed DJ in the nation. He would go in in the mornings and set up tapes at KCBQ. Pretty soon he would do parties, then he became Dr. Q, and it was all uphill. He had a voice for that kind of stuff. He loved the oldies,” Bob Cooley said.

He started his radio career at KCBQ in San Diego and came to Albuquerque in the late 1980s. He took the name Dr. Q from the call letters of a station he once worked at, and few knew his real name. He was quick with a bad joke and even quicker with a telephone dial, and he would call his friends several times a day.

Many in Albuquerque will remember Cooley's “Dr. Q's Traveling Oldies Show,” a radio show he did locally out of a retired school bus that he would park at car dealerships or gas stations and broadcast live.

“He was a great talent that will be missed. He really enjoyed interacting with the fans,” said Craig Collins, operations manager of Real Oldies 1600. “He loved radio, interacting and had fun. He's a unique talent that we won't see for a long time. He had a voice that was almost Wolfman Jack-esque. It was like that, not quite as gravelly, but that same kind of style. He probably grew up listening to Wolfman Jack.”

Although radio was his life's work, Cooley was also a world traveler, photographer, and recording engineer, his brother said.

“He took two full-length trips on the Orient Express. He was all over Europe, Italy, the Bahamas doing promotional stuff for people,” Cooley said.

But he was also very spiritual, and after leaving Big 98.5, he lived in Pecos and worked as a lay person at Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey. There, he performed church services and recorded the monks' music that was sold at the gift store in Pecos, Cooley said.

He was also an avid photographer who at one point worked for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta as an official photographer.

Over the past year, Cooley expanded his recording business and recorded several local musicians and bands.

Cooley's wishes were that there would be no memorial, his brother said, but the family asks that donations be made in his name to the American Diabetes Association.

He is survived by his father, Robert Lincoln Cooley Sr., in Franklin, N.C., and his brother Robert Cooley Jr., of El Cajon, Calif.

Although Bruce had his demons and could be quite obsessive, he was generally a good guy at heart and will be missed.